The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1887-03-31
THE SORROWS OF GRAvE-DIGGERs.
They All Die Poor---Their Woes Told by
One of the Craft.
(trom the New York Star.)


(trom the New York Star)
Burying the dead in Calvary cemetery
has come to be IL disagreeable job to the
unloh OF grave -diggers, but as no walk
ing delegate appeared i'll the cemetery
yesterday, the grave-diggers were kept
busy all day with pick and shovel, digging
new graves. The announcement that
the Gorick association had struck was
premature. 1t has presented its ultima
tum to the authorities of Calvary ceme-
terry, and it awaits their answer. One
Of the graye-diggors, very intelligent
man, leaned on his spade in the cemetc-
ry yesterday and said to a reporter Of
the Star
''Grave-digging is about as hard and
unhealthful an occupation as there is.
suppose that the average term of life of
n gravc-digger is much less than that of
most other workmen. We don't go off
rs quickly us they do in powder mill,
but we go fast enough. Every day we
work we are digging our own graves.
Grave -diggcrs do not last more than five
or six years. They get crippled by
working III the damp ground, and have
to go to the pOOrhouso, and sometimes
thor families have to go along with
them. Pneumonia gets its grip on them
III these cold, wet graves, and in few
days the grave diggcr's fellow wOrkmeH
arc digging his grave, and rattling the
clods down him. There are only two
old grave-diggcrs i'll the cemetery, and
after they have worked SO many years at
the trade their wages have been reduced
from 81. - to $l.50 Il day, because they
arc so old. One Of the men has been
digging graves for about thirty years.
He may be said to have lived in the
cemetery.
ga grave is 8 feet deep, 7 feet long
and : feet wide at the bottom. Some
times we have to make it ten or twelve
feet wide at the top to prevent the sides
from falling in. In the winter the frost
IS sometimes two feet deep, and digging
the grave is like cutting through granite
1t takes from half to three quarters of q
day 10 dig Il grave, and, as our fellow
workman says in Hamlet, it lasts for
ever. 1t axes skilled man to make
grave. An unskillcd hand would be
very likely t. bury himself. Nearly all
the people We ever see here arc i'll tears,
and, considering the hard, disagrcoable
and unhC0 thy character of the work we
do, we think We ought to be dccently
paid for IT. At present We get $l.T5 Il
day, and lose the rainy afternoons. In
winter we are laid on about one week in
four, and lose rainy days besides. My
pay last month was only !S};}, which is
but fraction over 81 IL day for every
day III the month.
owe are always in debt to the baker
and the butcher, and it is impossible for
us to put by any money for the time
when we shall be too old to dig graves
The supcrnt, ndcnt of the cemetery gets
100 year, or about $40 week. OF
course he IS 10th to advance our wages.
In summer we make about so Il week
1t has been said that we own our houses.
There isn't Il gravc.di9Bcr in Calvary
cemetery who owns his house or will
ever get money enough to own one.
The cemetery gets 81 for every full
sized grave that's dug, and it gets 81 900
on the side hill there for n plot Of ground
sixteen feet by eighteen. 1t can certain
ly afford to pay 81 II day to the grave
dlggcrS, and they earn that much. Most
all the people buried here are poor peo-
pie. They are the Iongshoremen, hod-
carriers, carpenters, masons and brick
layers Of Now York. They do not want
to lie in cheap labor graves.
"Iho good Bishop McLoughlin. of
brooklyn, pays ~ IA day to the grave
diggcrs in FIatbush cemetery, and he
pays it every day rain or shine"